Latin America Is World's Most Violent Region

Area accounts for nearly one in three global homicides, U.N. study shows.

By

David Luhnow

Updated April 11, 2014 8:55 p.m. ET

MEXICO CITY—Latin America is the world's most violent region, accounting for nearly one in three global homicides, according to data from a new study by the United Nations.

Latin America racked up some 134,519 homicides in 2012, about 31% of the total for that year, according to a tally by The Wall Street Journal of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime's Global Study on Homicide, its first since 2011. Yet the region's 574 million...